Attack and Conquer
by Killer-San
Summary: The leaf is defeated and the Akatsuki are resurrected but in learning that the true leader is Madara, Deidara and others defect from the Akatsuki. Are our rebels doomed to be conquered, or will they meet a much different fate with our own Sakura Haruno?
1. Prologue: Part One

Disclaimer: ...D;

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**PART ONE:**

_The sad thing is, to the children of tomorrow, our battles will be nothing but numbers in a text book. - Unknown_

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War fires burned the once strong village walls to scorched shells of their former glory, the tears of the fallen lost in the wreckage. It was truly a great victory for the Akatsuki, the mighty Fire Country had fallen at last. They had used every ace in the hole, dead kages, the seven swordsmen of the mist, infamous killers. There was a stench of rotting flesh in the air that only added to the effect of Kabuto's 'zombies,' as they fussed around and killed the scraps of ningas and those who had holed up in shelters. They were pressuring down the remaining forces of the Leaf, they had won, Madara was going to get his wish. Revenge; sweet revenge, complete control over everything and anything at will.. Ultimate power, that was what the masked man had almost contained. It was inches away from his fingers. Who would have thought that the war could have been one without the last Jinchuriki? Perhaps it had just been fate that he had won, or perhaps the fact that his plan had gone perfectly, as usual.

The resurrected section of the Akatsuki stood guard in different places around the rubble, keen eyes keeping watch for strugglers that tried to slip through the woods. No one was supposed to be left alive. In fact, the Akatsuki members themselves weren't supposed to be alive, the souls of those haunted men belonged to the fiery pits they had been dragged from. They were brought back by the whim of a mad man, in a trade for Sasuke's life and a forbidden jutsu Kabuto had inherited from Orochimaru. They should have been burning in hell, not standing over a town of smoke that resembled it, but there they were and they stood proud. It seemed a silent, invisible force had deemed that these men weren't finished with what they had started in their previous life.

Deidarastood watch at the corner of a field, just a mile away from the village below him. He was posed on what could be called a rather pathetic hill, blown up from it's former glory by one of Nagato's 'ultimate pushes.' Surely, defeating the leaf like this was a triumph but Deidara, irritated as he had been for quite some time, narrowed his smoke glass eyes at the smoke that he sucked into his lungs. Fuck, it wasn't like he could get cancer. In fact, the only thing that sucking in the smoke would do to him was sting, and help him feel just a little bit more alive than he had felt before. Pain was the only thing that seemed to be giving him that adrenaline rush these days, that rush that had been close enough to have been a quality in his previous life was lost in this one. Perhaps it was the fact that he had learned his last piece of work had failed, or that his team mate who he had trusted turned out to be _the leader of the fucking Akatsuki ._Oh, or lets try the fact that Tobi wasn't Tobi, he was Madara _Uchiha._ Yeah, that about summed it up.  
Art had just lost it's zing.

Deidara's blond locks brushed his cheek in the slight breeze that had started to clear the air, wincing his eyes shut against the sting of smoke that was directly pushing itself it his direction. Madara had decided to set the village on fire as a sign of triumph over the Leaf, for his revenge had been achieved upon the once peaceful village. It had been a middle finger to the Leaf metaphorically in itself, seeing as fire tended to eat up trees like honey bees ate up pollen with their little feet.

As the smoke cleared past, however, Deidara was shaken from his trance by a pink haired woman who tore through the grass, small child in the crook of her arm. She wasn't badly burnt, only the ends of her unnaturally pink hair were fringed with black ash, and the child looked unmarred to his eyes. She dashed for a blind spot, anywhere that she could find to get out of the clutches of the Akatsuki, but she didn't understand that her swift movement caught the pair of icy blue eyes, so blue they could have been mistaken for part of the sky, so cold they could have been mistaken for ice.

She was most certainly an enemy ninja, he recognized her as Sasori's murderer, and if she got out into the outside world all of the battle techniques and what she had seen would get out. There was already rumors of a rebel army outside the boundaries of the land of fire. Supposedly, it had formed even outside of the continent, but that was only rumor. The Akatsuki had yet to find any proof that such a rebellion had formed so soon, but one couldn't be too careful.

"Wait girl, Uhn!" He called after her as she zoomed past him into the black of the forest.

As his voice rang out against depths of the woods, she gained speed. He realized that he had just made an awful mistake, seeing as his own legs still had some stiffness in them. He had been dead for so long, and somehow he appeared that he hadn't even touched the grave soil the bits and pieces of him had been buried in. Deidara supposed that it was all account of Kabuto's reanimation jutsu, and it was all connected to the heavy silver ring that weighed heavy on his index finger. If he took off that symbol of his allegiance to the Akatsuki, he could possibly live a normal life. If he continued to wear the ring, he could be just as immortal as Hidan. Every hit ever placed on him would only regenerate, but he would still have to hold connections to the Akatsuki. Wearing the ring enabled Madara to know where he was, when he moved and what he was thinking. It was all so much trouble, Deidara had tried not to even think about it. He already knew that living as an ex-Akatsuki member was stupid, especially when the Akatsuki had just won a war and planned to start on the rest of the fucking world.

All of that aside, he shook his head and tried to rid his mind of it.

"Girl!"

She turned her head towards him, only catching a glimpse of his cloak before kicking it into high gear, and completely leaving him in the dust. Fuck, Madara would kill him. He was dumb for calling out to her in the first place, he could have just taken advantage of her with the tactics of surprise. She was trying to watch over a kid as well as run away from him, her skills shouldn't be at their best seeing as she'd be distracted. She wouldn't have sensed him if he'd gone along with his plan like that.

Eventually, Deidara needed to stop running, she was long gone and he didn't plan on chasing after the traces of herself she left. He pondered on the idea of lying to Madara, and saying that no one had escaped. Surely the masked man wouldn't have noticed that Deidara had been gone from his post for so long, and what was a woman with a child? Not much, not really, unless Deidara thought back on old man Tsuchikage's teachings. He had taught Deidara that all women shouldn't be taken for granted, seeing as the old man himself had been jumped once or twice by his other apprentice..

Deidara stopped himself, before going off into countless memories about his 'little sister,' the feeling of nostalgia becoming a little nauseating just at the thought of those warm afternoons in Iwa. He turned back in the direction of the field instead, and trudged back into the war zone trying to brush that nagging notion off of his shoulder. You see, not long after thinking about his 'sister,' he had begun to ask himself a question.

If a ninja like Haruno could simply step away from her village, her duties, and a pledge she had made to the Leaf for just a small child that didn't even look like it was hers, why couldn't he simply step away from the Akatsuki, his duties, and the bind that held him there?

He had never thought of that before, as simple as the thought was. Well sure, back before he had died he had thought about busting out, he had felt caged in the Akatsuki. He was a bird that needed to fly free, back then anyway. Now he had been tamed, he knew he had been tamed because he no longer dreamed of soaring off into the sky. Only recently he had even been feeling like walking, and running. Perhaps discovering the truth about the Akatsuki had killed his spirit.

* * *

The attack came on like a firecracker that had been cast off as a dud. You come closer to the damned thing to throw it away, thinking that it isn't going to light, but then it does right in your hand. The flames and sparks lick at your skin and leave behind the bruised and bloodied battlefield that are yours hands. Fire caught onto buildings that held precious memories, and soon the infection spread. Invaders took down our ninja like they were pieces of paper in the wind, one hit and they went down. It was an army of the immortal, the ones that we did manage to knock down getting right back up like they hadn't even been hit. By the time reinforcements from the Sand would come in, The Leaf would have already ceased to exist.

Sakura was already running by the time the first quarter of the army dropped, cursing herself for being a coward. She flew past the infirmary where the people wailed in front of the entrance, people crying out for the ones that had been lost. Soldiers hadn't even bothered laying the wounded out, there were so many. The dead and half-dead lay unsorted in piles. And then she was far past there, her eyes blurred with the weight of her betrayal.

A mother screamed inaudibly from inside a building, brown scorched hair pushed behind one ear as she coughed, smoke cascading out of the open window. That was the only reason Sakura would stop today, to look up at the woman as she pleaded soundlessly with her.

A crack shot through the air as the supports inside the building broke, and the walls groaned with the weight they now carried. Flames ate away at the bottom floor of the building, threatening to eat up the mass before it could even give way to the ground, and the mother did what she could in that moment. She pushed her baby through the window, and her eyes shone with the true terror of death, the questions she had that would never be answered.

_What if Sakura didn't catch her precious little love?_

The skyscraper would hit the ground before the mother even knew.


	2. Reminders Of Home

Disclaimer: I disclaim this disclaimer which is disclaiming Naruto disclaimingly.

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_How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you - you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences - like rags and shreds of your very life. ~Katherine Mansfield_

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Sakura had lain the boy on the only bed that the room offered, her bright green eyes warily watching his heaving chest. They were in a village between the Village of Greens and the Village Hidden In The Grass. It was a rural sort of place, with normal people and a low tourist count, she was sure very little people would recognize her as a ninja here, seeing as they didn't get much information from outside the town. Most seemed to not even be aware of the war that had raged just a few miles off their border.

He was short, and only came up to about her knee which wasn't saying much. Kokoro, his name, was the only information she had been able to get out of the little boy aside from his favorite colors and various other small, unimportant things. She had asked several times if he knew of any other family besides his mother, but he was so young he got distracted very easily and found ways to distract her as well after she asked. It had been bad enough that they had spent two days along the border, walking in between two villages that warred quite frequently with one another and dodging patrols on either side. It would have been labeled stupid to travel along that route while on a mission, but seeing as she had gone rogue from a village that didn't even exist any more, she now played the weary traveler. She had nothing to fear from the two small villages on either side of her, especially as she took on the appearance of a dirtied young mother. It was a good pity role, and often got the pair their daily bread from the soldiers on either side.

Sakura had seen many things on the short path they had traveled, things that she had never seen before. It was amazing what losing something could open your eyes to, it was like Tsunade used to tell Sakura when she was a small girl, once one window closes another million open up. It was the first time Sakura had ever laid eyes up a sakura blossom that was still blossoming in late August after the first frost. Most Sakura petals had already fallen ages ago, but in a short stubbly little sakura tree in a mess of crisp august leaves one hung fast. It had reminded Sakura of home, at the time, when all the Sakura trees blossomed over the river bank during the spring, until Kokoro had reached up into the low hanging branch and plucked the blossom free. His smile then had warmed her bitter heart, with all the self pity and loathing it contained. Who would have ever known he would have been such a sweet child...

There would always be something for her now, even thought she could never get past the fact that she had lost everything she had ever really known, it was worth it. She liked to believe that it was fate that struck cowardice into her heart, and forced her to abandon her home for without it she would have never saved Kokoro's life and met him as the lively child he had turned out to be. She only hoped that in good time, she would be able to find him the home he needed. Sakura eased back into the blue striped chair as her eyelids fought to stay open and her head became dizzy with visions of Kokoro, happily running into his families arms once more. He had to have a father, right? He had to... for his own sake.

Her head lolled as she worried away into a light sleep that would bring her the only peace she had been admitted for the day.

"...Miss?"

Sakura shot up in her chair and rubbed her tired eyes, before responding. She cursed herself for being so tired, she hadn't even noticed the woman approach the door. Someone could have just waltzed in and stole Kokoro.. or slaughtered him, and she would have just been sittin' there dreaming away her life. She was paranoid. All she wanted to do was sleep, at least for a few minutes, but her new life didn't allow it.

"Should I bring breakfast up, Miss?" The woman repeated in a heavy, annoyed tone that would have made Ino's sarcasm seem like light conversation.

The woman had a sort of foreign accent, which Sakura thought was strange considering the Land Of Greens didn't take very well to strangers who came to live in the lands. Tourists were fine, but if you weren't born there you tended to be mistreated. She had heard the rumors in Kohona. Other than that, Sakura was slightly surprised that the hotel offered room service, it wasn't exactly high class, but she just couldn't say no to a hot meal. It wasn't like she was expecting fine class cooking from a woman who sounded like she barely knew the native language. Sakura would be surprised if the woman had been in the country for more than a few weeks.

"Yes, thank you."

"I will be back in about ten minutes, Miss."

The woman had sounded slightly agitated at the fact Sakura hadn't answered her right away, and her emotions were played out in her heavy footsteps. She was stomping, unless she was that heavyset, but by the sound of her voice she didn't sound very heavy. Sakura didn't really give a damn though, wasn't her problem. People just really needed to learn to lay off the chips. She focused on forcing herself out of that comfy chair and fixing her hair before waking up the small sleeping boy. They had a long travel ahead of them.

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_Tick. Tick._

The gloomy lair stood hidden behind the willow trees of the forest miles away from what once was the proud ninja village called 'The Village Hidden in The Leaves.' It was a rather dank place with little personality, and a lot of history. It had been a paper mill, originally, back when paper was first invented. Nagato had found the thing abandoned a few years back, and with his love for the things once loved and then deserted, he fixed it up and turned it into something a little more nice. Of course, it wasn't anything too fancy or too suspicious to any passer-by that may lay eyes upon it. It was just a nice big building in the middle of freakin' no where. (He really should have thought out location.)

_Tick. Tick. Thock. _

Deidara poised himself carefully, so his feet could balance himself against the table while tilting back in the chair. He had been waiting for at least an hour inside the dumpy little room, and done everything that the room had to offer, which was absolutely nothing. It was bare, aside from a large clock and a red and white patterned carpet that clashed with the color of the walls. Some people just didn't consider artistry anymore, Deidara himself could have done a better job decorating, but he supposed that Madara didn't exactly think about decoration while planning to _take over the world. _

He ground his teeth in the silence of the room that was only ever interrupted by the tick of the grandfather clock to the right of him. He could see it, grinning at him from by his robe clad shoulder, and it progressively got even more annoying as time had passed by. Perhaps, it wasn't the clock who was annoying Deidara but the time he had to wait in the interrogation room for someone to show up and tell him what exactly was going on. He hadn't done anything out of line for weeks, nothing since they had returned from the Leaf Village, but he had thought about it. That bastard Madara, he deserved to be knocked around a few times anyway. He had manipulated Deidara, had lied to him about every single thing he told him. Madara wasn't Tobi, not the Tobi that Deidara had known. In the place of Tobi stood another man who was the polar opposite; intelligent, elite, serious and an _Uchiha._

He had those fucking eyes.

_Chime. Chime. Chime._

Deidara had allowed himself to open up to this man, become friends with him, share things with him that no one else would have ever guessed that Deidara knew and all of it was just a lie. Madara, he had placed himself in his own organization as someone that everyone would have never have thought was really the elite leader of the Akatsuki, to keep an eye on them. Nagato, poor sweet Nagato. He had the best intentions at heart, and Madara managed to use Pain's own abused past against him. He had manipulated all of them, but especially Deidara. He fancied himself the person who was victim of Madara's games most of all, for Madara hadn't played with Deidara for the sake of gaining something important, but just for the sake of the boredom it would ease.

He had fucked around with Deidara's feelings for the hell of it, and that was something that the blond man could never forgive.

_Tick. Tick._

He groaned, rubbing his temples as the noise seemed to get even more persistent and obnoxious. The clock had to be ancient, it was made completely out of wood. A grandfather clock that most have cost some expensive sum of money. Deidara didn't understand why a piece like that would exist in an evil organization's base, seeing as it could easily be vandalized or broken. The money that Nagato must have spent on that clock, Deidara would have never spent to just have it displayed in a room for the debriefing of Akatsuki members and sometimes the recently brainwashed. But as said by many before him, Nagato was always a man of doing silly things for stature. He liked to think himself something like Apollo, with a nice home with nice things, and amazing powers up in the nicest area. What a fool Nagato had been, when Deidara thought back on it now. A fool, but an almost kind fool when put in comparison of the _Uchiha_.

When you fly to close to the sun, you get burned. Someone should have told Nagato that before he went and did something stupid, and put Madara in charge.

_Tick. Tick._

Deidara ground his teeth against the sound of the clock as it's loud pendulum swung back and forth, back and forth in the beautiful woodwork. Perhaps the clock had been put in the interrogation room for a purpose. That clock was the perfect form of torture, especially when one had been waiting for such a long while in such a place. It smelt like death, blood and piss in the room as well which also wasn't very pleasant to inhale and exhale. He could taste _piss,_and that just wasn't okay. The poor man didn't know when it would seem to end, until Kabuto returned a few moments later, a folder held against his darkly garbed chest that seemed to hold the contents of something rather important..

"Hello, Deidara."

_Tick. _

"Mm."

Deidara made a small noise that told Kabuto he was acknowledging the fact that the snake man had spoken to him. Kabuto and Deidara, they weren't exactly the best of friends. Frequently in the past they had met in battle, which had ended in a very pissed off Deidara and a wounded Kabuto because of Kabuto's sharp tongue. To only add to this, Orochimaru had once been in the Akatsuki.. and well, you can collect the rest of that story from here.

"You have been acting very odd lately, Deidara. Would you like to explain?"

"What do you mean, yeah?"

_Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick._

There was a brief pause while Kabuto drew the hood that surrounded his features around his neck, revealing that starch white face of his that much resembled Orochimaru's. It was sickening, in a way. He looked like a snake, which are rather disgusting creatures that slither about and eat rodents. Deidara shuddered at the thought of seeing Kabuto entrap a poor field mouse in his great wide jaws, it was worse than the time Kisame had eaten octopus.

"You know what I mean, you seem very angry, and rebellious. Especially rebellious, and we both know Madara doesn't like _traitors.._."

Deidara's crisp blue eyes narrowed dangerously, and he stared Kabuto down from his chair in the room. It wasn't that he was necessarily angry about being accused of treachery, but that Kabuto always had that _attitude._That Uchiha attitude that Deidara had so much resented in Sasuke and Itachi, the eyes that ignored his art.

The clock was beginning to tick heavily, as if something were in the way of it's natural movements.

_Thock. Thock. T-tick._

"So, he didn't like Orochimaru, huh?"

Kabuto's facial expression didn't change, and didn't falter from the emotionless mask that it had taken on as he flung back an insult that would make Deidara cringe away with wounded pride. "No, he didn't, and he's beginning not to like you. I tried telling him you were only acting this way because it turned out that you were the fucking retard, and he was the intelligent leader all along, but eh. He still wanted you investigated anyway. Just in case you had a real reason to be such a pissy baby."

"I don't have to take your crap, yeah!" Deidara stood up angrily, slamming his open palm down against the table while the chair he sat in fell backwards to the ground with a bitter 'clang.' That god damned attitude, those god damn cool airs. He had about had it, he really wanted to lay into this guy.

_Tick. Tick._

"Actually, yes you do." Kabuto smiled calmly at the angry blond, before turning his back to him and proceeding towards the heavy metal door. "But for now, you don't, because I don't really even think you're strong enough to kill me, seeing as you failed to kill Uchiha Sasuke." Then, stopping in front of the door as his sentence came to an end, he stared into the reflection of his eye in the tiny sliver of a window that the door had. It looked like a tall rectangle that had recently gone on a diet. Someone couldn't even fit their hand through the thing to get out of the room and reach the doorknob on the outside, seeing as the inside simply didn't have one. You had to be buzzed out of the room by an outsider.

Deidara's fists bunched up at his sides as his hands slid off of the edge of the shining table. He knew that if he attacked Kabuto, he would be brought right to Madara to be punished for 'friendly fire' and he really didn't feel like facing that fucker. In fact, he didn't even want to glimpse a corner of that mask that hid Madara's face for reasons only Madara himself knows. It took everything for Deidara not to reach into his pocket, and put his art into action.

"Ciao, Deidara. I'll be seeing you."

He watched Kabuto leave most spitefully, his teeth bared at the man's back. He wanted to tear Kabuto's eyes out and feed them to a stray dog, he wanted to make Kabuto's spinal cord into a necklace, he wanted to paint with his blood. All of these things that Deidara wanted to do, and yet he could do none of them. It filled that empty place that had opened in Deidara's chest, that resentment. What anger he felt! Oh, if Madara only knew..

_Tick. Thock. Tick. Thock._

Deidara trudged away from the table, and stood in front of the door that had let his superior out. He didn't expect it to open for him, he was trapped in there for a reason he supposed. It just made him feel better to know that he could see a bit out into the open hallway of the Akatsuki hide out. He was already caged here as it was, but being stuck in this room made things very hard for the poor artist. He didn't have much freedom in the room, there was nothing to do. It was just a room, dressed up like a crappy office with a tall clock and a rug. It even had a plant in it, god knows how the thing was still growing seeing as Deidara never saw anyone going around with a sprinkler to water the damn thing. Perhaps Zetsu took care of it, now that was a thought.

He caught the corner of someone's dark robe as they passed by the doorway in the tiny slit of a window, but made no large attempt to try to attract the person's attention because he didn't see a way that someone who had any sense of intelligence would let him out. He would kill someone if he got out of that room in that moment..

Deidara turned away from the door with a heavy sigh, his chest rising and falling against the chiming of the clock.

_Chime. Chime. Chime. Chime._

"God damn you, Nagato."


	3. Breathing Art

Disclaimer: I don't own much, maybe a few people tied up in my closet cosplayed as members of the Akatsuki, but eh. These days who doesn't have a few of those?

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_Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one. ~Stella Adler_

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"I think it would be best to move Deidara to another base until he overcomes his emotions, Kabuto." Madara said. "I don't think he can handle so much right now, as I suspected."

The clock ticked away behind Deidara in the investigation room as that bastard, that fucking _bastard,_ tried to get rid of him. He knew that something had been wrong, from the moment they had brought him back. From the moment that he had exploded those drawings of him and Tobi, around that gorgeous fire, pretending to be friends.

"My fucking Kami, yeah. What the hell is wrong with being angry, uhn? Why the hell is that a disease? I'm fuckin' fine, uhn!"

Deidara stuck his hands deep into a bag that rested at his hip, eyes crazed with spiteful passion as he palmed a handful of clay. He could hear Kabuto shuffle backwards away from him as the gray haired man saw him begin to draw his weapon, but Deidara didn't dare remove his eyes from Madara. His art's strength was infinite, it was king, if they both decided to attack he could handle both of them. He knew he could.

"You didn't think to remove his weapons, Kabuto? How foolish, but then I suppose things will be more interesting this way, especially because the fool is so rash as to be so _obvious_ with his emotions unlike a true shinobi."

A shudder ran up Deidara's spine as he watched Madara, careful to avoid looking directly into his eyes. Deidara, aside from being arrogant, also knew when he was against a formidable foe. His hands worked still worked fiercely to form something that might ensure his escape, even though he was so sure that he would be able to escape. Yes, Deidara, the loyal Akatsuki member wanted to _leave._ What a joke. He hadn't ever wanted to be in the Akatsuki in the first place, his hand had been forced by that wicked Uchiha... Itachi.

Madara appeared behind him, just grazing Deidara's cheek with a blade before Deidara whipped around and threw a trademark clay centipede at him, but the centipede missed and hit the floor where Deidara had thought Madara was just standing. He _had _been standing there, right? Deidara jerked his head to the left, avoiding another strike from a kunai and slipped the clay creation on his foot, kicking it back at where he thought Madara was again, but it failed once more, frustrating the artist.

A thought crossed his mind as Deidara slid deep into the darkness of the room, his pupils dilating as he tried to dispel whatever genjutsu that may have been cast on him, but nothing changed. The room continued to be the same, full of the spiteful man that now held a fraction of the hate in Deidara's heart.

"Something wrong, Deidara?"

Deidara's head shot to the right to see Madara standing close by, gloved hands clasped together in front of his gray and red-clouded robe, orange mask cocked to one side. It was a stance he had taken frequently as 'Tobi.'

"You seem to be upset." Madara's voice broke into a lighter one at the end, a mockingly careful one that resembled Tobi's.

Deidara swung around in circles in a nervous fashion as Madara disappeared into thin air, making a small note in the back of his mind that Kabuto had also disappeared. That didn't really bother him, Kabuto was a coward, a smart coward, but a coward none the less. What did bother him was the game Madara was playing... Deidara couldn't let himself be brought into these mind games..no..not now. It wasn't the time to get worked up. A small smile graced his thin lips as he realized what kind of time this was right now, the chance that he had. Everything was being played out into the open, Madara and himself, he didn't have to be sneaky or catty about it. He had been pondering this ever since he came back, right?

He had a chance to escape, and to sweeten the deal, escape with a bang. And he was going too take it while he could.

Deidara's hands pressed together into a hand sign, setting off the writhing centipede that had seemingly been abandoned on the ground, only seconds after he started his dash through the darkness and out of the open door that Kabuto had kindly left open while fleeing. He kicked his legs into high gear as he ran, moving himself harder and faster with chakra increased jumps, but even then the heat from the explosion immediately rose up upon Deidara's back and only then did he experience the true rush of his explosions up close. It was exhilarating, dangerous, but exciting, being caught in a near death trap. The doorway from the interrogation wind burned up behind Deidara just as he burst through it, running hard past Hidan who was playing poker with Kakuzu in the cafeteria who looked up with a strange expression at Deidara's run. It was only seconds until the edges of the explosion hit that room though with no time to stop and warn them of the oncoming trouble, Deidara was already a second ahead, throwing himself out of the first floor window and onto the ground. He was sure the Zombie Brothers would survive, Hidan was immortal after all and Kakuzu was ninety-one years old. And it wasn't like they had gotten caught in the center of the explosion, after all, he had no ill will towards them.

He hit the ground running, not even bother to look back to see the house collapse from the loss of support beams from the basement, not even to see if the person screaming his name was Sasori. He had a future plan for himself, and no one who had been in that place was in that future. Well, maybe slightly.

He would join the rebel army. That's what he would do.

Another smile crept up onto his face, the singed ends of his hair flying loose from the way he had sloppily put it up that morning, but he didn't really care that his only hair tie was falling to the ground below him. No, that was unimportant currently. He threw his head back, wild as an animal in it's natural habitat. He knew deep down he would never completely be able to leave the Akatsuki, the past would always be with him. He'd always be labeled ex-Akatsuki, it was something he could never completely escape, but hell. Who the hell cared? This was freedom, this was _life_. He had just left, simply as that. Just like she did. Just like Haruno.

A strong, large bird bowed it's head before Deidara, who marveled at it's beauty, before climbing into it's moist clay back and letting it fly him off into the sky. It wasn't going to be easy, finding a new future. But as he whipped into the bright sky he could tell there was something new waiting for him on the horizon, something different. It was a new start, a new day, and he couldn't wait to brighten up that horizon with a bang.

* * *

The heavy-set woman turned out to be not so heavy-set as she knocked on the room door again. Sakura answered cautiously, sticking her head outside into the hallway before accepting the heavy tray with a small smile. She gave thanks, and shut the door quickly behind her, unintentionally slamming the door into the face of the woman who was about to heartily request a tip that the pair couldn't afford. They were low on funds, running out of money and Sakura had started to rely on stealing to support herself and her new-found friend. It felt dirty, stealing. She felt dirty, regardless of the dozens of showers she could take in the inns they'd visit and ditch without paying the bill.

Kokoro's wide, toothy smile was enough to ease her guilt, however. She'd set the tray of rice balls and breakfast foods on the coffee table, and his eyes would go wide with joy. She saw so much of her loved ones in him, Naruto's fondness for Ramen and Chouji's for food... Shikamaru's laziness and Ino's love for flowers. It brought her both joy and pain. She didn't know what to do with the boy, her heart always darkened at the thought of letting him go to a good family, whenever she found an accepting village far from the area of war. But it was what was best, because the second she placed him in a good place she would followed the whispered rumors of a rebel army in hopes of saving just a scrap of order. Of honor, and peace. 

She needed to heal the wounds of her heart.


	4. Pointless Actions

Disclaimer: Pfft, I'm too lazy to try and own anything. See my fat rolls? Yeah. I don't even own those.

A/N: There's a lot of P.O.V switching in this chapter, I hope you guys really don't mind but I needed to fill everything in thats happening on every side of the story. Don't kill me!

* * *

_The purpose of life is a life of purpose. ~Robert Byrne_

* * *

Tall stacks of smoke littered the sky, while debris covered the scorched ground. Few body parts lay strewn around the field, under various pieces of burnt wood from a once glorious building that had stood in it's place. It resembled a battle field, where one person had most definitely lost.

But you know how the saying goes_, You may have lost the battle... but you haven't lost the war._

Madara stood in the center of this destruction, cursing the very person who uttered the name 'Deidara.' This would set him back, so much, and all because of that damned blond _fucker. _Never, never had he been so enraged, and anger was his regular emotion when he wasn't fucking someone over. The Uchiha should have seen this coming, he knew he should have ever since Deidara had come back to the base, he had been acting strange. Madara blamed the fact that Kabuto had let the Akatsuki retain most of their personality when they were resurrected, leaving them unbound to their own thoughts and plans. Just because the snake-boy hadn't understood Deidara's jutsu and how it worked, he had let Deidara have more control than he should have.

That's what he got, though, for letting a snake do anything. He should have learned from his past mistakes with Orochimaru, the original scaly bastard.

Smoke curled up into the sky from the burnt pieces of wreckage, as if it tried to escape the oncoming wrath of Madara where he appeared, but in the place where he did stand... Smoke trailed around the bottoms of his robe, controlled and commanded. He stepped among the wreckage in the compound, not even bothering to search the ground for any remaining inhabitants. They would make themselves known soon, anyway, considering that if the resurrection jutsu worked as Kabuto said, their bodies should be slowly regenerating at this moment. Deidara's explosion would have done nothing but destroy a temporary base, but Deidara was always one to do pointless things.

He just had no idea just how many of the things he did where pointless, honestly. And that was what made him so interesting, so easy to manipulate- those feelings that encompassed his very being and inspired his heart his great downfall.

Madara dragged his eyes very slowly across the edge of the field that surrounded what had once stood his proud, and tall, base. He could sense the fringes of Deidara's chakra, just before he burst up into the sky like a falcon, but made no plans to pursue him. If he wished to leave, then so be it. It would only benefit him in the fact that his death would be stalled for just a few more days.

The ex-Uchiha leader turned his back to the edge of the field as he began to faintly sense the stirring of a few others, namely Zetsu and friend, and embraced the twisted feeling of relief. It would have been a hindrance if Zetsu had been murdered in Deidara's shenanigans, because Zetsu was not under the Edo Tensei and was vulnerable.

The darkly garbed man made his way towards the area of which the chakra called out to him, so engrossed in his spiteful thoughts that he would not notice the two almost perfectly covered chakras, fleeing into the distance.

"Why are we moving so fucking fast?" The shadowed man's voice spat out, light and arrogant with the apparent bowing of anger and impatience. He was always a quick-job man, never one for the long trips or tracking people. It was took too long, much too long to do things this slow way. He wanted to attack now, bring Madara down now. Patience was never a solid virtue, either, if that hadn't been able to guess before.

"With distance comes safety, even Deidara thought of that, Sasori... You just have to be patient, that's all."

* * *

-~0~-

* * *

That was it. He could see the bare lines of a starving town, estimated at about three miles from where he was.

Squinting as the clouds got thinner, and they started to disperse, he could almost see the land that was littered in trees, so unlike the land he grew up in. He would have to start walking soon, the trees would only provide good cover if he was among them. Plus, it would be a good idea to get some food into his rumbling stomach and new clothes, maybe even some new clay in town. He hadn't exactly planned on leaving when he did, it was sort of like his explosions. Unplanned and random. Well, technically it _was _one of his explosions... but that wasn't the point. He hadn't packed anything but the money that was in his pocket and the clay in pouches that rested on his hips, which he was currently running short of.

The blond artist sunk down from the shelter of the thinning clouds, narrowing his eyes against the wind that rushed into his face as he changed speeds and direction. Hair flew behind him wildly as he landed in a clearing of trees, before jumping off the bird and onto his feet in a dangerous but momentarily fulfilling way, his hands unconsciously positioned in the hand signs to explode his creation.

The moment was ruined though, as his stomach growled and he sighed, slapping his hand onto his forehead only to be licked by an orifice that he hadn't given a hard thought too in the past few hours, which had earned him a rather disgustingly _wet_ wake up call. He stared at the smiling mouth miserably a moment, pulling it from his face, and staring at it like it was some alien creature from mars. He was used to waking up every morning to see those mouths, it didn't bother him really. He just forgot about them sometimes and thought it strange that something was licking him or his hands were kissing when he clapped. It was... awkward, really. Especially in public. Hidan had pointed out the fact that every time he clapped he was kissing himself and ever since that thought had never left his train of thought, always in the back of his mind where he would remind himself constantly not touch his hands together. And holding hands with anyone else? Forget it.

Deidara's stiff legs and arms cracked as they moved and he dropped his hand to his side, asleep from resting still much too long on the bird that he was quickly gaining distance from. He wanted to get away from it as soon as possible, not only irked by the lingering wetness on his face but the urge that twisted in his stomach to explode the damn thing and complete his art. It was rare that he didn't explode his creations, very rare. But he couldn't afford to complete his art this moment, he was a bit low on clay for his tastes and the village would notice the explosion and send guards, or even worse ninja, out to investigate.

It would be idiotic to ignite that bomb in that moment, completely foolish and impulsive.

Instead, he had decided that the bird would trample through the woods after he arrived in the village and linger right on the edge wherever he did so see fit, so when he felt ready, he could get the hell out of there with his equipment and food. It made him slightly uncomfortable to stop still so close to where he had just blown up the Akatsuki base.

Twigs and dead leaves crunched under his sandals as he stomped along, pushing branches out of his face and trying his hardest not to get too aggravated with his choice of travel. Patience was a virtue Deidara lacked for that moment, in all honesty. A trait Sasori had never seemed to have completely rubbed off onto Deidara seemed to be peaking out at his brims, like a bucket of water that a small child continued to fill. What an overflow it would be, when Deidara noticed the chakra of two black figures trailing him, about five miles off.

* * *

-~0~-

* * *

Light played across the worn path like a young mother spilling new sheets out across beds, wide and clean, with the pleasant smell of unfamiliarity and something _fresh_ like a new budding plant. Light even seemed to spill into the water, staining it a golden brown that didn't float down the river but stay imprisoned in a small, teeming spot.

Sakura tightly gripped Kokoro's hand as if she were his mother, carefully observing his footing as they walked along the river bank. She had this constant loop of pictures in her mind that made her wary of him falling in, and drowning. He had been so persistent to walk by the river side, staking claim that he was a gentleman and he wouldn't let a lady walk somewhere where she might get hurt. However, Sakura was almost positive that he wanted to walk by the riverside to look at his reflection in the swashing water and try to catch the fireflies that danced by it's edges in his hands. Only three and this kid was already a sweet talker. None the less, she had let him hold onto her lithe hand and swing it back and forth like a swing rope in the air, while he smiled towards the river and pranced by her side. It had just been a few weeks since she had saved him from certain death at the silent beg of another mother, and Kokoro had already become so dear to the pink headed medic.

"Sakura-Chan, where do birds come from?"

Slowly, he was able to ease her anxiety with his innocence, a smile passing her lips that was radiant and honest.

Kokoro had taken a new liking to asking Sakura dozens of pointless questions, because he seemed to thoroughly enjoy the answers. He had already asked her many things, such as why the sky was blue and why the earth wasn't flat when it felt so flat under the soles of his shoes. However, it was also beginning to become a new past time for Sakura as well. She could only smile when he asked her such questions, and go on to create only the most silly of answers to the questions she couldn't have possibly known the answer too.

"Well, I'd like to think they came from the pieces of clay pots, when they are dropped and shatter against the ground..."

* * *

-~0~-

* * *

He trudged impatiently through the bog-ish area, the mud that covered the ground all the way up to his knees seeping into his clothing and starting to chill his legs aside from the midsummer heat.

"That bastard!"

Deidara's fingers curled around the clay in his pockets, brushing against the bare top as he trembled with frustration. He had a mind to fly back to the town he had just come from and demand that the shop owner return every last sent he had paid for that backpack, because it obviously was _shit_. Two hours using it, just to hold some paint brushes and maps, and the strap had snapped leaving the contents of the back to spill out to the ground beneath him. And now, here he was, half an hour later still looking for it.

Absolute bull-shit.

"Why so serious, Deidara?"

Deidara stopped dead in his tracks, the chill that had once lingered in his legs running up his spine and through-out his whole body like an infectious disease. The way the intruder had spoken, that silken and venomous way... when he turned, he expected to see an orange mask, or Kabuto's white hair, but he was faced with two people that hadn't even crossed his mind. People that were of no threat to him, for the moment.

"Hello Kakuzu, Sasori-Danna..."

Sasori didn't reply, simply staring at Deidara with his hand shoved deep inside his clay bag, the wary way the mouse stares at the cat, or the lamb at the lion. It was a moment of pure silence, the silence of the grave in an eerily quiet night- a night so silent that the peepers dared not peep and the crickets dared not sing.

"I thought you guys would have gotten all burned up in the explosion, yeah? Especially you Sasori... seeing how you are made of wood." Deidara said, his tone rather snark-y for the indifferent look on his face. His emotions had always betrayed him, he was such a woman, always giving way to his feelings. But neither man answered him, they just stood vigilant at the side of the bog without any protest while mud seeped into the sides of their sandals. Sasori's own stoic look seemed to speak enough for itself, with the traces of black anger at the edges of his mask.

"Why, hoping that I died, brat?" Sasori's voice was ice and silk, sand paper and a smooth beach stone. A tone that was everything pleasant, and yet everything not. That man, he was a walking contradiction being living wood.

The look in Deidara's face darkened as the peaks of emotion began to show. "Not at the moment, seeing since it already happened, before everyone else did, yeah. But if you're seeing the death in the future does that mean you're some kind of psychic? If you are, it's been a great honor to meet a psychic before you die _again _at your superior's hands. I wonder if you predicted that?"

Deidara was to blame for the bad blood between him and Sasori, even though he would never admit it out loud. The way that his humor had darkened, his subordination, and the mocking Sasori underwent about his death had rotted the foundation of their already rocky partnership to the core. It had been obvious that as annoying as Deidara found Tobi, he had replaced Sasori in some way. Deidara still had respect for the wooden man, but that silent... almost adoration. Tobi had taken that, and Madara had taken Tobi. _No_, not taken. Destroyed. He had destroyed the memory of Tobi in Deidara's head.

Kakuzu shifted ever so slightly, the only indication that he was getting impatient the slight switch of his index finger. Deidara had learned that from playing poker with Hidan, Kakuzu and Kisame. When his right index finger began to twitch you really needed to make a play, because although Kakuzu was rich in age and money... he was definitely not a millionaire in a thing called patience, while he was certainly rich in another thing called anger. The snappish banter passed between the two ex-partners was obviously taking too long for him to handle, but Deidara could only recall hearing some where along the line that wisdom came with age, and Kakuzu was climbing up there. Hadn't he ever heard the saying that 'haste makes waste'?

"No, I'm not a psychic. But I have murdered one before, _would_ _you like to meet him?_" Sasori's voice was laced with venom that seeped over the careless tone he normally held deep in his throat. If it had been a different time, and a different circumstance it might have been entertaining to watch Sasori transmit emotion. However, with Deidara's betrayal in the air, it didn't seem appropriate to find the situation as humorous as Kakuzu did.

"No tha-"

"How about we get down to business." Kakuzu rumbled, cutting off Deidara's sharp retort with his words. His tone was low and almost indistinguishable compared to the other two in the area, as if he didn't really want to be placed in the position of control in the situation. He hardly ever spoke anyway, which only added to the rumor of his lacking hunger for attention, aside from a few yells in Hidan's direction and some occasional mumbles about money.

"I suppose we should..." Sasori leaned to the side just the slightest bit, in Kakuzu's direction, as if he were trying to hint that Kakuzu should be the one to speak. Honestly, Sasori knew he shouldn't have let his emotions slip like that anyway. Even though he had managed to create himself as the only thing he had given his heart to- art and puppetry, emotions hadn't been shed from his form. He still felt love, sorrow, compassion, _anger._ It just so happened that learning how pathetic Deidara had been over Tobi's facade sparked off a few feelings of the latter which he found very hard to control...and which led to fights with Deidara much like these. But before Kakuzu could even begin to mouth the words he wished to speak, he was interrupted.

"Did Madara send you here? To stop me?"

That moment of tense silence, like the silence before the storm, ran through out Deidara's body like a river. He studied both of the pair's body language, looking them up and down as if he expected them to just pop out and kill him. But what only occurred to him after he was done day dreaming about wiping Kakuzu's blood off of his hands, was that if Madara had sent the two, he had sent the oddest pair to ever be together. Not only were they not in a partnership together, but the simple pairing of their fighting styles clashed like thunder and sunshine.

"We took off after escaping the ruins of your explosion, so no- Madara didn't send us. "

. Crisp blue eyes glanced over them again, as if they might have missed something before, as if this conclusion was impossible. But it was possible, because in some twisted way, it made sense.

It made complete sense that a portion of the Akatsuki wanted to leave, especially when a small part didn't even join the Akatsuki by will, and those that had joined by will found themselves under a new leader with a new set of goals. The Moon-eye plan sounded so ridiculous compared to the world peace cover that Nagato had in his own plans, in fact, the Moon-eye plan sounded silly by itself. A man wanted to reflect his eye power off of the moon? Did he even realize how far away the moon really was?

Deidara turned towards Kakuzu, already having branded him the more sane one a long while ago, after a moment of silence, his hand slowly edging away from the clay in his pocket as his shoulders relaxed. "Why did you both follow me? It will make it easier for Madara to track us down if we're all together."

Kakuzu's arms folded across his chest, his green specked eyes looking hauntingly secretive of the life he had once lived. "Think about it, Deidara... it would be harder for him to kill us as a group, and there is more profit in working as a group..."

"I see, yeah... I kind of figured you were in it for some sort of cash benefit."

Kakuzu stiffened, that famous temper beginning to surface as Deidara completely misunderstood what he had meant. It was about the time when his fists started to clench and un-clench, while Deidara continued to spew meaningless questions about 'where all the money was now,' that Sasori finally stepped in with a wooden clunk of his legs as he shifted. "He meant that we could join up, imbecile."

Deidara's hand rose to run back through his loose silken threads of hair, almost looking as if he were giving the pair's offer consideration. "Well, no thank you, yeah. I think it's time we went our separate way-"

"Madara is going to send whoever is left in the Akatsuki after us, he already knows that we left, I can guarantee it, Deidara."

He paused, letting his hand fall from his hair while he looked at Sasori with a serious expression. He wondered if Sasori knew exactly where the hell he was going with this, it wasn't like the three of them could battle off Madara. That sick bastard knew everything about every single one of their fighting styles.

"Exactly what are you implying, Sasori? That we might all be able to fight him off if we join the rebel army together?" His tone deepened into the more sarcastic one he had held before, his mouth set into a deep frown as he spoke. Trying to feign like joining the rebel army hadn't been a thought of his before.

"He'll track us down one by one and kill us, Deidara."

"Death was a risk you were willing to take when you joined the Akatsuki. Why such cowardice, now, uhn?"

"It would be better to travel in a pack, Deidara, considering who's left."

Deidara let out an annoyed huff, his fists curling against his muscled hips. It was an annoyance when Sasori explained things, seeing as he could never finish anything correctly. Arguments were finished without making points, like the puppets that were made without human expression. Completely unfinished, and therefore a waste of time. "I got that already, yeah, now get to the fucking point."

Sasori only responded with a narrowing of the eyes as the thin wall of patience broke like paper mache, of which also resulted in a heated grab for his own puppet scroll and an outright pissed off Kakuzu. Kakuzu, his expression hidden by his mask, but apparent by the tone of his voice, grabbed Sasori's wrist just before he attacked Deidara. The wood splintered onto the ground and into Kakuzu's hand like shrapnel from an old world bomb, but he could only grip the puppet man's wrist even harder, disregarding pain in the blinding fury that coursed through out his veins.

"Now... the point is that in the Akatsuki, we were allowed to try to achieve our goals as long as they didn't interfere with the Akatsuki's main plan. Seeing as we've all died and all, now, we don't really have a choice in the matter of which and where we go, do we? Our lives were lost, therefore by having snake-bastard's apprentice revive us..." He paused, the speckle green and black eyes sweeping over Deidara's expression as to evaluate his understanding. "Kabuto controls us when we are at our weakest, when we have on our rings. No one else has seemed to draw the connection between those moments our mind's go blank and we move without our control, and the rings."

Deidara looked downwards at his hand, studying the silver shining ring that he had stuffed in his pocket after running from the base. The power that it held was not lost on him, which was why it hadn't been removed from his person. It wasn't as if he were afraid of it, per say... only what would happen without it. They would lose their ability to regenerate wounds without the rings on, but Madara and Kabuto could track them when they had the rings on. He weighed the option. Not every one under the Edo Tensei of Kabuto's had the rings, but that was because most of their personalities had been limited because their jutsu was simple. They needed to be restrained because they were against the Akatsuki. The post-mortem Akatsuki members needed less restraint. They already fought for the Akatsuki.

"I suppose that I will join you, nn."

But as Deidara turned to look at his companion's hands, he saw that no ring adorned them. The suspicion and anger rising up in his chest like bile, he could only begin to think of the words of accusation to form before a small brown bag was shoved into his face.

"In there, the ring. They've been tracking you. We sensed Kisame a few miles off."

Deidara shoved Sasori's hand, and the bag, out of his face before he actually put the ring into the bag where it fell into place with the other two's rings. Wherever the hell this was all headed, he supposed that he was on for the ride, as long as it landed in Madara's destruction in the end, because in revenge there came the only way to heal a wounded heart.

"We're going to find a place to eventually ditch these rings."

Kakuzu turned to Sasori, continuing to talk as his shoulders hunched into a less authoritative, and more relaxed, position. Soon enough, they where making their way towards his own clay bird, which he had no idea how the hell three of them were going to ride. He cursed himself for even agreeing, he had been a freed man just moments before they had shown up and ruined his good time. Now, anchored again by his haunted past, he could do nothing but let them mount the mock-sparrow, while making another much smaller bird for his own. There was no way he would cling onto Sasori's waist while the other bird made off with them, to their future.

The situation made him wonder, what the hell exactly had he gotten himself into.

They were a mismatch group, they didn't belong together. Everything about them opposed each other, and yet, here they were fighting for a common cause. Whither it be because of their own individual dreams, or feelings, it all centered down to the fact that the three most unlikely people to work together, were.

* * *

-~0~-

* * *

As the sun set over the village of towering Victorians and the dying rays of sunlight glimmered in the reflection of the river, Sakura pulled the shade over the scene with little attention to what was really going on around her. Kokoro had settled, sleeping on the love seat in the hotel room, and though normally she would already be climbing into bed at the moment, she stood very still by the window sill. She could feel the air coming through cracks in the old house's window, but in the wind she could sense something coming. Not a person, but something much more delicate, and fleeting. There was a change on the horizon.

She could feel it in her gut.


	5. Singing this will be the day that I die

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, I would have made a spin off about the Akatsuki and not Rock lee.

A/N: Hey, all. I'm sorry I've been gone for so long! I've been so busy with life lately, that I've just been watching/reading Naruto instead of writing about it between shifts. Recently I decided to look at some anime again, and I started obsessing over Gaara (again). Feeling unfulfilled with the amount of Gaara given to me by Kishi, I went to FFN for my fix. After reading several stories and becoming disappointed that most of them _sucked_ (sorry, authors) I took a peek at the monstrosity of my own stories and have gone over past chapters of Attack and Conquer to edit, add, and revise. I've managed to conjure up the basic idea I had for this story back into my head, and I'll probably toss and turn until I pick at the smaller details. I regret not having listed my ideas for this when I first had them, because I know they were good and now they are infinitely lost. I still hope you people are out there and interested in this story, and if there are people there still, thank Gaara for bringing me back.

* * *

_Be it human or animal, touch is a life-giving thing. ~Robert Brault_

* * *

Rain pelted the village and the Victorian houses turned into black blotches against the setting sun. The moment just before dark, as the rain fell and each droplet was alight with the dark orange of the sun at the edge of the earth. Two dark shapes were trapped in the sky, with wings that mocked that of a bird, unfamiliar to the citizens of the village. But they didn't notice, the quiet life of a town untouched by the war that had raged hundreds of miles off. They were coming home from a long day's work, inside their houses as the street lights flickered on and the sun left the sky to the moon. Rain fell against the roof tops with light pitter-patters, setting the mood for the night as the two bird shapes landed on the outskirts of the village.

"Why are we stopping, yeah?" Deidara's voice was low, and hard to discern against the heavy droplets that were beginning to fall and bludgeon the roofs of the dark houses.

Sasori's eyes flickered towards the sky, and then unbelievably towards the artist who seemed almost oblivious to the conditions that had made the surface of the clay birds slippery and hard to hold onto. He didn't give him an answer as the bird landed in a patch of tall grass, and he stepped over the edge with a wooden thud. Kakuzu, almost relieved to be out of the awkward position with Sasori hopped off after him, and cast his eyes over his shoulder towards Deidara, waiting for the blond man to follow.

They walked in silence towards the village, leaving the clay birds under a copse of thick leaved trees, heavy drops of rain seeping into their clothing until it stuck to their skin. By the time they reached a suitable motel, Deidara's long locks of hair clung to their cheeks and the clothing they all wore was heavy with water. The Motel was a tall, old Victorian as the other buildings in the town were, colored with faded paint that chipped towards the foundation of the building. Westernization had reached this town long ago, sometime around the industrial revolution of the west, but it was obvious it hadn't had an update since it was first built. It must have been a factory town, where the money had all dried up at some point. Sasori's eyes traveled to Kakuzu, as the tall man approached the clerk's desk and negotiated in low murmurs a room for the night. He felt almost uncomfortable with the way Kakuzu was talking to the man, perhaps it being the wetness that would cause his wood to swell, but he wanted to get into a room where he could dry off. Even though Kakuzu might be able to talk a few dollars off the room price, he knew that the longer they stood in the lobby meant the less sleep they would get for that night.

Deidara had stepped off, looking around in the lobby that was decorated in the theme of taxidermy; the pelts of animals hung on the walls, unfamiliar animal heads that were posed in un-natural positions. One could see his un-impressed look, that speculation that came to conclusion that this was not a respectable art form. He was about to step back over to the clerk's desk, when he noticed a small boy coming down the spiral staircase in the room that the lobby led to. He had long black hair, bright eyes that contradicted the dreary atmosphere. He ran right past Deidara, around a showcase that displaced several cat-like animals, and to the clerk's desk. Kakuzu cast his green eyes down towards the boy, and watched him deposit several coins up on the clerk's desk before turning and running back towards the way he came. There was a moment of silence as the boy was watched to walk over to the showcase he had just run around, before Kakuzu turned back and negotiations continued. Deidara by then had lost interest, and had his fingers in a lion's mane. Testing the feel of the fur against his finger pads.

"Lions are kings."

The small voice grabbed Deidara's attention quickly, and his iced eyes traveled down to his side to see the small boy. "Oh?"

"All lions are brave and they protect themselves from anything." The boy lifted a tiny hand and grabbed onto a patch of fur on the lion's leg. "They protect their family."

Deidara didn't say anything to that, letting his hand slip from the lion's mane.

"I wish I was a lion."

He looked at the boy, drinking in the expression with curiosity. But it was interrupted by Sasori who stepped around them with a loud wooden 'clunk' and looked back towards Deidara as to ask if he were coming or not. Kakuzu soon followed the red headed man, and Deidara found himself stepping away from the boy with a confused look. Casting blue eyes back over his shoulder as the boy remained absorbed by the fur of the lion. He watched him until they came to the spiral stairs, and worked their way up to the second floor.

"Who was that boy, yeah?"

Kakuzu let his shoulders rise into a shrug, and the question was left without an answer.

Their room was small, painted a faded blue that clashed with the red of the antique furniture. There was one bed, and a love seat by a dusty window sill with one dresser with an old glass mirror on the back of it. One bathroom that seemed to be updated around the mid 70s sat by the doorway into the room, and Kakuzu cut quick corners to be the first inside of it. Probably wanting to strip off his wet clothes and take a shower. Deidara and Sasori walked further into the room and Sasori, without any embarrassment, stripped off his wet robes. He was a puppet, there was no need to be shy because he had no manhood. There was no reason he needed to wear clothes other than formality. Deidara, however, was more hesitant and decided to wait until Kakuzu had finished. Sasori wrung out his clothing, and set it out on the floor to dry. His expression blank as always, before he collapsed into the love seat. The room was that of silence, until the water was turned on in the bathroom.

* * *

-~0~-

* * *

Kokoro entered the pale pink room with a large smile on his lips, happily humming along to some forgotten tune. He seemed especially happy that night as he closed the hotel door behind him, walking over to Sakura's bedside.

"I gave the money to the man behind the desk like you asked."

Sakura's eyes would open slowly, her lips pulling up into a soft smile. Anyone could tell that she was tired, the pair had been walking for miles and she had hardly gotten the sleep that she needed, and yet Kokoro still seemed oblivious.

"Did you go and see your lion?"

That question sparked a happy response, and Kokoro pulled himself up onto the bed's edge and began to excitedly talk about the lion, and how he wished he could see a real one and pet it. Sakura's tired emerald eyes couldn't stay open, however happy she was he had found a distraction to the situation, and she contentedly closed them as he spoke to her. Hoping he wouldn't notice that she had fallen asleep until he fell asleep himself.

* * *

-~0~-

* * *

The night had been awkward, as Deidara and Kakuzu had been crammed in the same bed together. Forced up against each other like gay lovers, they attempted to have a pillow or something between them, but in the middle of the night Kakuzu just ended up on the floor. Deidara was a bad person to share a bed with, Sasori had noted that as he watched the pair sleep. He was a being that did not need rest, and therefore was never subjected to the way Deidara sprawled out on bed in his sleep and attempted to remove any other being from the pillows and blankets. Like tonight, Sasori had always kept watch and kept a bit of reading material. The things human had called dreams where something he was beyond, and didn't need to return to. He didn't miss the countless nightmares of his childhood-

Deidara stirred in the sheets, and Sasori's thoughts were cut off by the sudden movement. He finally noticed that the light had touched the sky, and he set down the book he had borrowed from down in the lobby at his side. It had been an old book of fairy tales, something he hadn't touched up on since he himself was a child. But in a collection of 'How to' books on Taxidermy and old fashion magazines he supposed there hadn't been much choice. He walked to the window, carefully stepping around Kakuzu's sleeping form on the ground.

He looked up towards the sky, his elbows resting on the dusty window sill. He could see clouds still, stifling the brightness of the sky, and it made his attention turn towards the town which was still quiet in the hours of the early morning. Sasori sighed at this, and turned to make his way out of the room, having dressed into his pants earlier that morning. He felt odd, even without having male genitalia, walking around naked. Sasori shook away the thought, and picked back up the book of fairy tales, prepared to return it to the lobby. He was careful to shut the door behind him quietly enough that neither of the other males would wake up, and continue down the hall with the silence only a practiced ninja could possess.

He was stepping quietly down the spiral stair case, when his eyes fell upon that familiar little boy from the night before. Just on the corner of the doorway into the lobby, past all of the animals, he stood. Talking to some unknown person that the wall blocked Sasori's sight of.

"But it's so early."

A woman's voice responded in turn, almost sharp with irritation. "I know, but we need to get going, Kokoro. We've been here a day longer than planned."

Sasori took the last few steps down the stairs, and made his way past several wolves so that he could replace his borrowed book and creep slowly towards the conversation in the other room.

"The lion..."

Sasori's eyes widened slightly as he recognized the boy, suddenly, and he stepped into the lobby just about to say something to the boy when he saw her. A long black shirt shirt hung down to her hip bones, and matching pants followed to her sandled feet. But he wasn't looking at her apparel as well as he looked at her face. The wide green eyes, like emeralds, and petal-pink hair.

"Well, well." A smile danced across his lips, his wooden arm coming up to rest on his hip with a light 'clunk'. "How wonderful to see you again."

There was no response, only the tensing of muscles as he could see the kunoichi pull together some sort of escape plan together in her mind, her hand clenching around the small boy's hand in worry. But it was too late for that, as the desk clerk was no where in sight. Sasori lurched forward, his forearm raised as he mocked an attack towards her. Knowing that she would block that, easily, he took the advantage of her block to bring down his elbow upon the back of her head. She passed out within moments. Sasori immediately looked to the boy, who stood wide-eyed like a cow in line for slaughter, but Sasori made no motion to go any closer. Instead, he lifted the unconscious kunoichi by her soft pink strands and gave the boy an option.

"You can either come with me, or stay here. Either way, she leaves with me."

The boy looked up at him, fear-ridden like some sort of animal, and Sasori took this as some sort of agreement. Lifting the unconscious woman into his arms and starting his way back through the crowded room of taxidermy animals, he assumed the boy would follow.

* * *

-~0~-

* * *

Kakuzu arose before Deidara, lifting his hands above his head with short, unhappy groans that reflected his displeasure with being forced upon the floor. He could feel the tightness in his back, his legs numb from the odd position on the floor he had taken in his sleep. The morning reverie as he stumbled into the bathroom was short, just having entered the 70s flashback as Sasori burst into the room, unconscious woman in arms. Kakuzu was not amused as he stuck his head out of the bathroom door. For the first few moments that the pair was in the room, Kakuzu was sleepy enough not to recognize the woman in Sasori's arms, although he wasn't stupid enough to have forgotten her face from his own special edition of a bingo book. It took a flash of her pink hair as Sasori threw her unconscious body onto the bed with Deidara to jog his memory and he went back into the bathroom with a look of disgust.

Deidara awoke almost immediately at the sudden weight pressed into his side, and skillfully flailed out of bed. Ironically, he had not been able to sense the loss of weight as he kicked Kakuzu out of bed the night before. Now, he wriggled on the floor until he was fully awake and thrust himself up onto his feet, looking around for some sort of ninja assasin who had awoken him. Instead, he found a little woman with pink hair, a bump the size of an egg on her head. It was Sakura, that woman who had escaped him...

"Did you have to give her a concussion, yeah?" Deidara drawled in a sleepy tone.

Sasori didn't answer, looking over his shoulder instead as the same small boy who had spoken about the lions with such admiration stepped in through the doorway. Timidly walking into the room with little to no recognition of the men he had spoken to the night before.

"What is your name, boy?" Sasori asked, honey-eyes as empty and cold as his sand-papery voice.

Kokoro couldn't answer for the longest moment, under the scrutiny of Sasori, he was frozen in fear. His voice only un-thawed long enough to sputter out his name for the man who had both his and Sakura's lives at the edge of a figurative knife.

"K-kokoro."

"Well, Kokoro. Welcome to hell."

Sakura flew across the room in that moment, just as Sasori finished his last word, with a kick to his head that sent him flying into the wall. He got up, however, completely un-affected. Sakura looked at him in bewilderment, her arms tensing up at either side of her as she prepared another attack, but was haulted by long black tendrils that suddenly enclosed around her wrists and ankles like shackles. Kakuzu had emerged from the bathroom, white towel held around his waist. The tendrils led to an opening in his arm, and he drew her closer to him, allowing another tentacle to slip out and cover her mouth before she could scream.

"Don't cause trouble, welp."

Sasori joined the group, while Deidara watched with careful blue eyes. Calculating the situation, and who's move it was next on the chessboard. Sasori's hand lifted and angled itself almost like a blade, while Kakuzu straightened out Sakura's writhing body. Making her arms and legs stick out as if she were going to be a star fish, or start some jumping jacks. However, the true purpose of holding her like this was much more sinister. They planned to kill her. Deidara quickly interjected, his heart racing in his chest for the pink woman, the one who had inspired him with the strength to leave the Akatsuki. Just as Sasori was about to stab his hand into her chest, Deidara called out.

"Hey, wait."

The two paused, and flickered their eyes towards Deidara, both holding some level of irritation as Sakura's wriggling worsened in Kakuzu's grip.

"She could be of use, yeah. She was a medic in the Leaf, which she defected from."

Sasori seemed incredulous, some of his rage stemming from the fact that a medic could not help him whatsoever. It would only be an extra onto their group that would drag them down, ever more so with the child that accompanied her. "You do understand that she killed me, before. We were always enemies, and never allies."

"I can stitch together any limbs you lose, therefore giving her no purpose here." Kakuzu added, making extra point to validate the murder even more.

Deidara did not falter. "She comes with us, yeah. She will be an asset to us as we join the rebel army, seeing as most of the men that fight are from villages we helped to destroy. Without her, we could be rejected easily and killed ourselves."

Sasori still seemed unconvinced, though it seemed to be a valid enough point for Kakuzu, whose shoulders relaxed as his eyes cast over to the child. "And him?"

Deidara didn't have an answer for that, calculating blue eyes watching as the black tendrils loosened around Sakura's form, the tendrils that had been around her mouth drooping. She took in a couple heavy breaths, trying to re-cooperate after being released from the heavy weight that had been crushing her. Her words stumbled out into a begging fashion, worried for Kokoro's life.

"Just let me take him somewhere safe, then you can do anything you'd like with me. I promise, I won't struggle. He just needs to be safe."

Deidara blinked, and agreed before Sasori could cut him. He wasn't fast enough to put off Kakuzu, however, who quickly followed after Deidara's agreement with a stipulation.

"Find somewhere in this village, today, or he dies."

Kakuzu reasoned with himself, wanting to give her enough lee-way to make his having to deal with her more pleasant. He didn't want the extra mouth to feed, but if she could guarantee acceptance into the rebel army, he would have to agree. Just as long as the child did not linger.

Kokoro looked at Sakura with wide eyes, upset that he had been practically abandoned. Alone. Deserted, by the last person he thought he had had on this earth. He would have rather died than be alone, without his pink protector by his side. His small lips parted into words, but no sound came out. Even Sasori, one without substantial emotion could read the horror and betrayal. Sakura's head nodded in agreement, although it broke her Kokoro's heart... she was his safety guard. Kokoro had to leave. There could be no more duo to face the world.

"Come with me, Kokoro-kun..."


End file.
